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La última visita del caballero enfermo
"Nadie supo jamás el verdadero nombre de aquel a quien todos llamaban el Caballero Enfermo. No ha quedado de él, después de su impensada desaparición, más que el recuerdo de sus sonrisas y un retrato de Sebastianbo del Piombo, que lo representa envuelto en una pelliza, con una mano enguantada que cae blandamente como la de un ser dormido. Alguno de los que más lo quisieron -yo estoy entre esos pocos- recuerda también su cutis de un pálido amarillo, transparente, la ligereza casi femenina de los pasos, la languidez habitual de los ojos".
40 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1906
26 people want to read
About the author
Giovanni Papini
231 books253 followersGiovanni Papini was an Italian journalist, essayist, literary critic, poet, and novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 9, 2024
3.5 rounded up
Part of The Black Water 1 anthology and read together with the wonderful Short Story Club.
I should review titles right after I finish reading them because my granny memory fails me. I particularly have problems with short stories. I wish I could write more about them and find out I can’t. In this case, I remember it is about a man who thinks he is the result of another person’s dreams and not real. He considers that he will live as long as that person continues to dream of him. Strange but I liked it. There were deeper themes here but I do not remember.
I've read of Gog by Giovanni Papini but the book never was on my list. I added it now.
Part of The Black Water 1 anthology and read together with the wonderful Short Story Club.
I should review titles right after I finish reading them because my granny memory fails me. I particularly have problems with short stories. I wish I could write more about them and find out I can’t. In this case, I remember it is about a man who thinks he is the result of another person’s dreams and not real. He considers that he will live as long as that person continues to dream of him. Strange but I liked it. There were deeper themes here but I do not remember.
I've read of Gog by Giovanni Papini but the book never was on my list. I added it now.
January 21, 2024
“No one ever knew the real name of the man we all called the Sick Gentleman. Since his sudden disappearance everything that was his has vanished as well…”
That’s the very enticing start of this short story.
We learn that he spoke enigmatically of “horrible things” and that he had an “unforgettable smile”, and a “constantly vacant look”.
“His presence lent a fantastic tint to the simplest things.”
The closing lines are equally cryptic and unsettling:
“Murmuring something very gently he left my room, and only one person has seen him since.”
Image: "Caricature of Papini", by Carlo Carrà & Ardengo Soffici, from Broom, 1922. (Source)
What isrevealed explored within the story, and how, reminds me of Jorge Luis Borges (see my review of his Collected Fictions HERE, and like Borges, he lost his sight, albeit at an older age). It prompts introspective questions of philosophy, theology and reality:
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
That’s the very enticing start of this short story.
We learn that he spoke enigmatically of “horrible things” and that he had an “unforgettable smile”, and a “constantly vacant look”.
“His presence lent a fantastic tint to the simplest things.”
The closing lines are equally cryptic and unsettling:
“Murmuring something very gently he left my room, and only one person has seen him since.”
Image: "Caricature of Papini", by Carlo Carrà & Ardengo Soffici, from Broom, 1922. (Source)
What is
Short story club
I read this in Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature, by Alberto Manguel, from which I’m reading one story a week with The Short Story Club, starting 4 September 2023.
You can read this story here.
You can join the group here.
January 21, 2024
Read with the Short Story Club
First I will just commend the short story club for the selection of the short story! Brilliant and impactful.
Was planning to rate it differently but the kind of impression it left on me, it’s not short of 5 stars.
The story consists of what seem like fever dream ramblings of a sick(?) person. I want to give a spoiler free review so won’t say much about the actual content but the story has a psychologically eerie air about it. Don’t know how exactly but made me reminisce of some works of Edgar Allan Poe:
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
First I will just commend the short story club for the selection of the short story! Brilliant and impactful.
Was planning to rate it differently but the kind of impression it left on me, it’s not short of 5 stars.
The story consists of what seem like fever dream ramblings of a sick(?) person. I want to give a spoiler free review so won’t say much about the actual content but the story has a psychologically eerie air about it. Don’t know how exactly but made me reminisce of some works of Edgar Allan Poe:
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
January 17, 2024
"I am but a figure in a dream. In me, Shakespeare's image has become literally and tragically exact: I am such stuff as dreams are made on! I exist because someone is dreaming me, someone who is now asleep and dreaming and sees me act and live and move, and in this very moment is dreaming that I am saying these very words."
This is a cleverly written story that has us wondering who is the dreamer, and what will happen if the dreamer wakes up.
It was translated from Italian by Alberto Manguel, the editor of Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature.
This is a cleverly written story that has us wondering who is the dreamer, and what will happen if the dreamer wakes up.
It was translated from Italian by Alberto Manguel, the editor of Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature.
January 28, 2024
“His eyes reflected no things that were there but other unknown and faraway things not seen by those who were with him.”
This story, about an unnamed sick man who walks and walks, trying to dispel the discomforting idea that his existence is but the dream of some other--some other who could wake any minute, putting an end to everything.
I loved the idea of this, but perhaps you have to be in the right mood, because I missed a little something in the execution. I think it would have been beautiful read in Italian. (But everything is beautiful read in Italian.)
P.S. A brilliant comment from a Short Story Club member completely changed this one for me. Sometimes it's all about point-of-view, and considering that gave this story additional depth. Changing to a strong four stars, and a big thank you to Fionnuala. :-)
This story, about an unnamed sick man who walks and walks, trying to dispel the discomforting idea that his existence is but the dream of some other--some other who could wake any minute, putting an end to everything.
I loved the idea of this, but perhaps you have to be in the right mood, because I missed a little something in the execution. I think it would have been beautiful read in Italian. (But everything is beautiful read in Italian.)
P.S. A brilliant comment from a Short Story Club member completely changed this one for me. Sometimes it's all about point-of-view, and considering that gave this story additional depth. Changing to a strong four stars, and a big thank you to Fionnuala. :-)
January 22, 2024
Read with the Short Story Club, ostensibly from the Anthology _Black Water_ Ed. Alberto Manguel
This is a rather brief story of an encounter with an other worldly type of person. I won’t say more, since it would ruin the story.
I tried to find it in the original Italian with no luck. I had never beard of the author and neither had my Italian husband. This story was full of food for thought on the nature of reality, what our purpose on Earth is and how we live that life. It made me long to read more stories by Papini.
This is a rather brief story of an encounter with an other worldly type of person. I won’t say more, since it would ruin the story.
I tried to find it in the original Italian with no luck. I had never beard of the author and neither had my Italian husband. This story was full of food for thought on the nature of reality, what our purpose on Earth is and how we live that life. It made me long to read more stories by Papini.
January 25, 2024
Are we the dream or the dreamer? This story should not taken as a reliable source of information on the process of "lucid dreaming" — which is becoming aware in a dream that you are dreaming. Presumably though, there are layers of meaning here which I have failed to appreciate.
An ethereal entity, the "sick gentleman," reveals that he exists because someone is dreaming about him. There is much philosophical discussion around this notion, of the sort that used to be thrown into short stories to add ballast. Sometimes when your craft is "high-concept" one must strive to lower the centre of gravity.
There were deft details and precious moments, but the weight of the story was illusionary, and there's only so much philosophy I can endure under the guise of fiction.
I want to give this 2 stars but I don't dare. Or do I?
An ethereal entity, the "sick gentleman," reveals that he exists because someone is dreaming about him. There is much philosophical discussion around this notion, of the sort that used to be thrown into short stories to add ballast. Sometimes when your craft is "high-concept" one must strive to lower the centre of gravity.
There were deft details and precious moments, but the weight of the story was illusionary, and there's only so much philosophy I can endure under the guise of fiction.
I want to give this 2 stars but I don't dare. Or do I?
February 10, 2024
Inane! Great story. And not too far off from the experience of regular dissociation tbh
January 19, 2024
“But why can’t I disappear, why can’t I be free of it all? Is it that I’m part of an everlasting dream, the dream of an immortal sleeper, of an eternal dreamer? Help me get rid of this terrible notion! Console me, find me some plan, some way to escape from this horror! I beg you, help me! Will no one pity this poor, bored apparition?”
“A few of those who loved him truly – and I count myself as one of the few – also remember his remarkable skin of a transparent and pale yellow hue, the almost feminine lightness of his step, and his constantly vacant look. He enjoyed talking for hours on end but no one ever grasped the full meaning of his words. I even know of some who did not wish to understand him because the things he said were too horrible.”
“A few of those who loved him truly – and I count myself as one of the few – also remember his remarkable skin of a transparent and pale yellow hue, the almost feminine lightness of his step, and his constantly vacant look. He enjoyed talking for hours on end but no one ever grasped the full meaning of his words. I even know of some who did not wish to understand him because the things he said were too horrible.”
September 21, 2023
Me ha encantado pero tengo la sensación de que no he entendido el final ¿Se libera o no? ¿Es un final abierto que no he entendido? ¿El narrador está soñando? ¿Sueño en realidad es una pesadilla y no se ha dado cuenta? Maravilloso el dibujo, he disfrutado enormemente esta obra. Recomiendo 5🌟
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2024
An enigmatic short story that leaves the reader sorting out the possibilities that have been presented. Like a well-written ghost story, we must decide who the sick gentleman is and what his existence (or non-existence) means.
I believe I will be thinking about this one for a while.
Thank you to my friends who steered me toward this one.
I believe I will be thinking about this one for a while.
Thank you to my friends who steered me toward this one.
January 24, 2024
As he goes from fear of ending his own existence by enraging or displeasing a mysterious dreamer to wanting to end his own existence by waking his dreamer up, we see all the story he has behind. The fear, the desire, the wanting, the curiosity, the discoveries, the changes is ideas, the atrocities, and finally the confession.
What happens if the dreamer wakes up?
What happens if the dreamer wakes up?
January 16, 2023
Es un muy buen cuento que no conocía. Siento que la ilustración de Luis San Vicente en este caso no envejeció bien.
January 24, 2024
Someone dreamt I read this, and so I felt strangely compelled in the process, eliciting rapport in the rote wrote role.
March 25, 2024
There was a man they called “the sick gentleman”.
He had a constantly vacant look and talked for hours on end but no-one “grasped the full meaning of his words”. The things he said were too horrible.
No-one ever asked what his ilness was or why he did not seem to try to cure it.
No-one knew where he came from. One day he just appeared in town and another day, years later, he vanished.
The day before his disappearance he came to the writer’s room to wake him at dawn.
He had apparently been awake all night; he had red eyelids, his hands were trembling and his body seemed to shake with fever.
When asked about his illness, he replied: “Do you believe that I have an illness?” He says nothing belongs to him, but that he belongs to someone, his master.
He sits down in a purple armchair beside the bed and says he will tell him who he is.
He reveals that he is not a real man, a man of flesh and blood. He is a figure in a dream. He exists only because someone is dreaming him, someone now asleep and dreaming. “When (this person) wakes I will cease to be. -- I am an imagination – of his -- nightly fantasies.”
This dream is so intense that he became visible even to those who are awake.
He is haunted by the thought, the question, “who is this someone who dreams me?”
He knows with absolute certainty that he is “the imaginary creature of a vast and enormous dreamer”.
Finally, he began to long for his awakening. “He filled his life with gruesome images so that the sheer horror might wake him.”
He did terrible things but the dreamer was not awakened.
Now in his last attempt he is telling the dreamer that he, the protagonist, is a dream. He wants him to dream that he is dreaming. And don’t people wake once they realize they are dreaming?
That is why he has come to see the teller of the story.
He asks for consolation, a plan, “some way to escape from this horror.”
He had “diaphanous” skin.
He left, and “only one person” has seen him since.
I find it hard to comprehend what is so terrible about the sick gentleman’s life. But apparently it is his knowledge of the fact that he does not really exist.
The story reminds me that some people believe that none of us actually exist.
Is this what the author is trying to say? Is this the point of the story?
He had a constantly vacant look and talked for hours on end but no-one “grasped the full meaning of his words”. The things he said were too horrible.
No-one ever asked what his ilness was or why he did not seem to try to cure it.
No-one knew where he came from. One day he just appeared in town and another day, years later, he vanished.
The day before his disappearance he came to the writer’s room to wake him at dawn.
He had apparently been awake all night; he had red eyelids, his hands were trembling and his body seemed to shake with fever.
When asked about his illness, he replied: “Do you believe that I have an illness?” He says nothing belongs to him, but that he belongs to someone, his master.
He sits down in a purple armchair beside the bed and says he will tell him who he is.
He reveals that he is not a real man, a man of flesh and blood. He is a figure in a dream. He exists only because someone is dreaming him, someone now asleep and dreaming. “When (this person) wakes I will cease to be. -- I am an imagination – of his -- nightly fantasies.”
This dream is so intense that he became visible even to those who are awake.
He is haunted by the thought, the question, “who is this someone who dreams me?”
He knows with absolute certainty that he is “the imaginary creature of a vast and enormous dreamer”.
Finally, he began to long for his awakening. “He filled his life with gruesome images so that the sheer horror might wake him.”
He did terrible things but the dreamer was not awakened.
Now in his last attempt he is telling the dreamer that he, the protagonist, is a dream. He wants him to dream that he is dreaming. And don’t people wake once they realize they are dreaming?
That is why he has come to see the teller of the story.
He asks for consolation, a plan, “some way to escape from this horror.”
He had “diaphanous” skin.
He left, and “only one person” has seen him since.
I find it hard to comprehend what is so terrible about the sick gentleman’s life. But apparently it is his knowledge of the fact that he does not really exist.
The story reminds me that some people believe that none of us actually exist.
Is this what the author is trying to say? Is this the point of the story?
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews